


Senses

by RascalBot



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, the fluffiest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RascalBot/pseuds/RascalBot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments between Jack and Bitty, aligned with five of the senses.  No plot to be seen, but might give you a cavity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Senses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eleanor_lavish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/gifts).



> This is a gift for [eleanor_lavish](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish), who has written some of my favorite stories in the fandom and who runs a generally fabulous blog. To you, my friend, I give some Jack and Bitty adorableness and more butt-touching than I have ever written before in my life. Have a 'swawesome holiday!
> 
> (pedantry time: there are a lot more than five senses, but the commonly identified five made good section titles.)

**Smell**

The air in the Haus kitchen had gained a stale quality over the summer, musty and stiff with disuse. Dust layered itself gently atop sticky patches of old beer spills, never properly cleaned but evaporated in the summer sunlight. The most traffic the room saw was trips to the fridge for beer, or the occasional 2am grilled cheese by the summer crowd. Mostly they just ordered pizza.

Jack had noticed the stillness when he returned (early, as was his wont) for his final year at Samwell. Ransom, Holster, Shitty, and Lardo had kept the Haus plenty lived-in during the summer – he was sure that half the stains on that couch hadn’t been there when he’d left – but the cramped kitchen felt empty. Jack sat at his customary place at the table, the seat he always chose when he wanted to watch Bittle put a pie together, and wondered if the room had always felt so big.

It’s not like it wasn’t exactly like this before last year, no matter how many pot brownies Shitty had been producing, but something had shifted since Bittle had become comfortable miracling baked goods from thin air in that kitchen and Jack wasn’t sure he knew how to navigate it without side-stepping a diminutive baker or a cooling pie. He took to avoiding the room for the next few days, unconsciously parsing the days into hours and wondering if he was coming down with something.

A few days later Jack walked through the front door and was met with laughter, smiles, and pie, and the impatience that had been living at the back of his mind eased itself away at the scent of maple sugar.

 

**Sight**

The years Bittle had taken figure skating were obvious to anyone who knew him, and not just because of his oblique references to Katya or Southern Junior Regionals. Bitty moved with grace and balance, even off the ice. Whenever Bitty was on the ice and he was on the bench, Jack’s eyes were drawn to him. He could never seem to capture in his memory the lines Bitty’s body made, the smooth changing shapes as he shifted and turned. And then he started to notice it off the ice and, wow, Bitty was just, and Jack knew he sounded like a weirdo in his own head, but he was beautiful. The tiny motions he made stepping around the kitchen table holding a pie tin, or sliding over the arm of the couch to settle next to Jack on one of the boys’ infinite movie nights.

They were sitting side by side on the beach near midnight while a drunk Ransom and Holster dueled a drunk Shitty and Lardo with water pistols when Jack caught Bitty staring up at him through his lashes. “What?” Jack whispered, elbowing Bitty in the ribs.

Bitty was already a couple beers in, making his blush difficult to discern from the flush of alcohol, but Jack noticed it creeping up behind his freckles. “Sorry,” Bitty said sheepishly. “I just… I like your face. I mean, you have the most killer cheekbones, you know?”

Jack leaned in to press a kiss to Bitty’s lips (they still hadn’t done that very much yet and Jack wondered if the pleasant warmth rising from his core would ever stop when he tried it, and didn’t mind if it never did).

“And don’t even get me started on the rest of you,” Bitty went on the moment they broke apart. “I mean, have you seen you?”

“Bittle!” Jack was blushing too now. But he was glad he wasn’t the only one looking.

 

**Taste**

Their ankles were still tangled in their pants, which were tangled in the bed sheets. Jack unceremoniously dumped the stuffed rabbit at the foot of the bed onto the floor, eliciting an indignant gasp from Bitty, which changed to a weak whine as Jack kissed his way down his throat.

“You… you should be nicer to Señor Bun.”

“I’m saving his innocence. We really don’t need an audience.”

This was not the first time Señor Bun had been kicked to the floor.

“You know,” Bitty groaned as Jack ran a hand down his stomach, “I’m never gonna get those honey pies finished if you keep pulling me up here.”

“You can bake a pie in five minutes, Bittle. But if you’re really worried, I could always stop.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“That’s what I thought.” Jack lowered his head again to suck gently at the skin of Bitty’s collarbone.

“Oh god, Jack,” Bitty breathed, running his fingers along Jack’s spine, and Jack sucked a ragged gasp between his teeth. It happened every time; Bittle would do something small and natural in just the right way, and suddenly his every nerve ending was on fire.

“Remember,” Jack whispered, “just let me know if I go to fast, or…” and then Bittle slid his hands onto Jack’s ass and _squeezed_ and Jack had to fight to keep his train of thought. “I’m serious, ah… I’m serious, Bittle, tell me...”

“You give me this speech every time, Jack,” Bitty sighed, already scrabbling in his desk drawer with one hand. “I promise I will tell you.”

“Thanks, Bitty.” Jack slid his arm under the younger boy’s shoulder to run his fingers along the base of his neck.

Bitty grinned up at him. “Now do us both a favor and shut up.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “You’re so bossy.”

“What? Jack Zimmermann—“

Jack leaned down to muffle the indignant comments with a rough and smiling kiss, savoring the lingering sweetness of honey on Bitty’s lips.

 

**Sound**

It had begun as playful chirping and tousled hair on the way back from practice, and had ended on his bed, Jack’s back pressed against the coolness of his bedroom wall, with Bitty kneeling over him, gasping heavily into the hollow of his shoulder.

“God, Bittle…” Jack was the first to speak, breathing out the words as he ran light hands across Bitty’s shoulder blades, relishing the way Bitty’s breath hitched as his fingers brushed over-sensitive skin. “Bittle, that… I mean… wow.”

Bitty nodded, leaning into Jack’s chest. Jack ran a hand through the cropped hair at the base of Bitty’s neck while their heartbeats slowed.

It was some minutes later that they finally disentangled themselves, and Jack decided to try again. “Bitty… I really… I mean, you’re so great, and I just want you to know… I mean. I… I like you.”

Bitty snorted. “You know, Jack, I had a feeling you might.”

“No, but…” Jack cursed inwardly. “I really want you to, you know, I want to tell you… aaargh…” He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.

“Jack.” Bitty reached out to tug Jack’s hand into his own. “It’s okay. I know what you mean.”

“No, that’s not…” Jack laced his fingers into Bitty’s. “I know you know what I mean. It’s one of those things that’s so… so great about you. But you deserve to _hear_ it. I want to tell you… how happy I am.”

Bitty was flushed and beaming. “Well,” he murmured, “you’re off to a good start.”

 

**Touch**

They’ve been dragged out for fro-yo by Shitty and Lardo, who are still just stoned enough that they don’t mind the walk in the cold, and as they squish into the booth together the conversation has somehow turned to superhero movies and which men are the hottest. Bitty is still quietly but firmly in favor of Steve Rogers, while Shitty exclaims loudly about Thor, and Lardo refuses to hear of anyone but Phil Coulson. And Jack just does not care; he’s only seen half the movies and the ones he did see he didn’t follow anyway. They have a game coming up, but instead of going over plays for the thirteenth time the three of them would rather talk about movies. Jack just doesn’t understand their priorities.

And then they somehow get on the subject of costumes, and the amount Bitty can say about the Marvel franchise’s costume choices is frankly astonishing. And Lardo, who doesn’t say a lot at the best of times, is suddenly a chatterbox when it comes to aesthetics, and Shitty can sound intelligent about anything when he puts his mind to it, and Jack is just vaguely annoyed that he put off an essay to be dragged out to listen at length to something that clearly doesn’t matter.

But then there’s a moment, right when Jack is about to say something grumpy or sarcastic. Bitty, in the midst of babbling excitedly about his Thor costume from a year ago, absent-mindedly grasps Jack’s hand on the table.

And Jack just softens, from the inside out; something in that simple gesture just opens something up in him that he can’t fight against. He forgets the conversation for a moment and just looks at Bitty’s face. It’s bright and animated and there’s the quirk of a smile on his lips, and his hand is in Jack’s. Their fingers interlock, and Bitty runs an absent-minded thumb across Jack’s as he talks. Jack looks at their hands with the utmost adoring confusion, over how this Georgian pie-baker could be holding his hand, and how it can still occasionally catch him off-guard.

Shitty and Lardo share a glance out of the corners of their eyes and suppress happy smiles and kick each other under the table because it’s just so cute and they _can’t say anything_. Once they’ve headed back to the Haus they’ll hole up in Shitty’s room and squeal excitedly to each other about what they’ve just seen, but for now they just watch, and enjoy.

**Author's Note:**

> Phil Coulson is the hottest man in the MCU and probably the world and my headcanon Lardo agrees with me because _somebody_ has to, dammit.


End file.
